Native Son - Richard Wright [122]
“God, but I’m tired!”
“I’m cold!”
“I believe we’re just wasting time.”
“Say, Jerry! You going to the roof this time?”
“Yeah; I’ll go.”
“That nigger might be in New York by now.”
“Yeah. But we better look.”
“Say, did you see that brown gal in there?”
“The one that didn’t have much on?”
“Yeah.”
“Boy, she was a peach, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah; I wonder what on earth a nigger wants to kill a white woman for when he has such good-looking women in his own race….”
“Boy, if she’d let me stay here I’d give up this goddamn hunt.”
“Come on. Give a lift. You’d better hold this ladder. It seems rickety.”
“O.K.”
“Hurry up. Here comes the captain.”
Bigger was set. Then he was not set. He clung to a chimney that stood a foot from the trapdoor. Ought he to stay flat or stand up? He stood up, pushing against the chimney, trying to merge with it. He held the gun and waited. Was the man coming up? He looked to the roof to his left; it was still empty. But if he ran to it he might meet someone. He heard footsteps in the passage of the loft. Yes; the man was coming. He waited for the trapdoor to open. He held the gun tightly; he wondered if he was holding it too tightly, so tightly that it would go off before he wanted it to. His fingers were so cold that he could not tell how much pressure he was putting behind the trigger. Then, like a shooting star streaking across a black sky, the fearful thought came to him that maybe his fingers were frozen so stiff that he could not pull the trigger. Quickly, he felt his right hand with his left; but even that did not tell him anything. His right hand was so cold that all he felt was one cold piece of flesh touching another. He had to wait and see. He had to have faith. He had to trust himself; that was all.
The trapdoor opened, slightly at first, then wide. He watched it, his mouth open, staring through the blur of tears which the cold wind had whipped into his eyes. The door came all the way open, cutting off his view for a moment, then it fell back softly upon the snow. He saw the bare head of a white man—the back of the head—framed in the narrow opening, stenciled against the yellow glare of the restless bars of light. Then the head turned slightly and Bigger saw the side of a white face. He watched the man, moving like a figure on the screen in close-up slow motion, come out of the hole and stand with his back to him, flashlight in hand. The idea took hold swiftly. Hit him. Hit him! In the head. Whether it would help or not, he did not know and it did not matter. He had to hit this man before he turned that spot of yellow on him and then yelled for the others. In the split second that he saw the man’s head, it seemed that an hour passed, an hour filled with pain and doubt and anguish and suspense, filled with the sharp throb of life lived upon a needle-point. He lifted his left hand, caught the gun which he held in his right, took it into the fingers of his left hand, turned it round, caught it again in his right and held it by the barrel: all one motion, swift, silent; done in one breath with eyes staring unblinkingly. Hit him! He lifted it, high, by the barrel. Yes. Hit him! His lips formed the words as he let it come down with a grunt which was a blending of a curse, a prayer and a groan.
He felt the impact of the blow throughout the length of his arm, jarring his flesh slightly. His hand stopped in mid-air, at the point where the metal of the gun had met the bone of the skull; stopped, frozen, still, as though again about to lift and descend. In the instant, almost of the blow being struck, the white man emitted something like a soft cough; his flashlight fell into the snow, a fast flick of vanishing light. The man fell away from Bigger, on his face, full length in the cushion of snow, like a man falling soundlessly in a deep dream. Bigger was aware of the clicking sound of the metal